Metacat

Margaret O'Brien recently reported the following problem accessing an XML-formatted EML document with protected access from the LTER Metacat:

"Access: when I try to view the xml version (by clicking on Metadata download: Ecological Metadata Language (EML) File It goes back to thinking I'm "public" again, and the url is: http://metacat.lternet.edu:8080/knb/metacat?action=read&qformat=xml&docid=sbc_eml210_test.5.2. At KNB the xml is returned under these conditions (without the sessionID in the url)"

The XSLT for composing many of the URIs to the EML document looks like this (see file eml-settings.xsl):

<xsl:param name="tripleURI">
    <xsl:value-of select="$contextURL" />
    <![CDATA[/metacat?action=read&qformat=]]><xsl:value-of select="$qformat" />
    <![CDATA[&sessionid=]]><xsl:value-of select="$sessionid" />
    <![CDATA[&docid=]]>
  </xsl:param>

The XSLT for composing the URI to the XML-formatted EML document looks like this (also in eml-settings.xsl):

<!-- URL for xmlformat-->
  <xsl:param name="xmlURI">
    <xsl:value-of select="$contextURL" />
    <![CDATA[/metacat?action=read&qformat=xml&docid=]]>
  </xsl:param>

I propose that "xmlURI" be modified to include the sessionid parameter, like so (the exact syntax should be tested):

<!-- URL for xmlformat-->
  <xsl:param name="xmlURI">
    <xsl:value-of select="$contextURL" />
    <![CDATA[/metacat?action=read&qformat=xml]]>
    <![CDATA[&sessionid=]]><xsl:value-of select="$sessionid" />
    <![CDATA[&docid=]]>
  </xsl:param>

It's not clear why the problem occurs in the LTER Metacat but not the KNB Metacat. However, since other URLs to the EML document (or to parts of the document, such as data tables) do include the 'sessionid' parameter, it seems like it would be consistent to include the 'sessionid' parameter when accessing the XML formatted document as well, unless there's a good reason to exclude it.